"I Want All the People of Hawaiʻi to Be Infatuated With Hawaiian Culture, Motivated to Aloha ʻĀina, and Eager to Kūʻē." A Kāneʻohe Senior Is Starting in the Philippines.
One of 42 public high school students selected for the 2026 Hawaiʻi Sister-State Study Tours.
Student Snapshot
Name: Kapualani Ruiz-Hyde
Preferred Name: Kapualani
School: James B. Castle High School
Grade: 12th (Senior)
Home Community: Kāneʻohe, Windward Oʻahu — she names her community explicitly and describes it with specificity: mahaʻai restoration, loko iʻa, food sovereignty work, "warriors from mauka to makai"
Delegation: Ilocos Norte/Ilocos Sur
Travel Dates: March 14–25/26, 2026
Focus Interests / Extracurriculars: National Honor Society President; Future Farmers of America President; Castle High School Agriculture Pathway Student Ambassador; 6th Cohort member of the United States Youth Action Council for the UN Ocean Decade; Hawaiʻi Institute of Marine Biology internship (two consecutive summers — college-level research skills); part-time job at a food establishment; Global Vision Summit attendee; Canon camera and camcorder owner; conversational Hawaiian language ability; extensive knowledge of native plants (kalo, ulu, kō, uʻala, ʻōlena) and agricultural systems (irrigation, aquaculture)
Career Aspirations: International relations and policy — she names this explicitly and connects it directly to this trip as her entry point; her agricultural, marine science, and UN Ocean Decade work all point toward environmental policy and Indigenous resource rights on a global scale
Why They Were Selected
Kapualani spent two summers doing marine biology research at HIMB, sits on a UN Ocean Decade youth council, leads both NHS and FFA at Castle, and has been restoring fishponds and farms in Kāneʻohe long enough that she describes her community as warriors from mauka to makai. Her essay ends with three pillars — aloha ʻāina, motivation to act, and eagerness to Kūʻē — and the conviction that if those are met, most of Hawaiʻi's problems will diminish. She is going to Ilocos Norte for the first time internationally, and her acceptance form says she's going to a place where her roots are.
What They're Excited About
Literally jumping for joy; anticipating this for a long time; her first time outside the country; a new world opening; the career doors this opens; going to a place where her roots are and strengthening her self-identity
"They Are Warriors From Mauka to Makai." A Kāneʻohe Senior Who Restores Fishponds and Sits on a UN Ocean Council Is Going to the Place Where Her Roots Are.
When Kapualani Ruiz-Hyde found out she'd been accepted, she literally jumped for joy. She had been anticipating this for a very long time. But tucked inside her excitement was something quieter — she wrote, simply, that she's going to a place where her roots are, and that she hopes to strengthen the relationship she has with her own self-identity. For a senior who leads National Honor Society, Future Farmers of America, and a UN Ocean Decade youth council, that kind of personal vulnerability is worth pausing on. The Castle High senior from Kāneʻohe is going to Ilocos Norte.
Kapualani is one of the most multiply-credentialed students in this cohort — and her credentials are rooted in the land and ocean of Windward Oʻahu. She's spent two consecutive summers doing college-level marine biology research at HIMB. She's the Agriculture Pathway Ambassador at Castle, which means she knows kalo, ulu, kō, uʻala, and ʻōlena by name, and can tell you how aquaculture systems work. She sits on the 6th Cohort of the United States Youth Action Council for the UN Ocean Decade. She leads NHS and FFA simultaneously. She describes her home community in Kāneʻohe with a line that says everything: "They are warriors from mauka to makai that ensure that the real Hawaiʻi is not lost."
Kapualani was selected because she has already been doing internationally-scaled environmental work from a fishpond in Kāneʻohe — and she knows it. Her essay names three pillars she wants for Hawaiʻi's future: infatuation with Hawaiian culture, motivation to aloha ʻāina, and eagerness to Kūʻē. She is confident that if those three things are met, most of Hawaiʻi's problems will diminish. That is not student idealism. That is a framework. Going to Ilocos Norte is the first step toward building it on a global scale.
"My community, specifically, is something that I can say I am grateful for. They are warriors from mauka to makai that ensure that the real Hawaiʻi is not lost." — Kapualani Ruiz-Hyde, James B. Castle High School, Class of 2026
When Kapualani comes home to Kāneʻohe from Ilocos Norte, she'll return as a senior who has seen where her roots reach — and who has already decided what she's going to do with that knowledge. For a Windward Oʻahu community that has been doing restoration work for generations, she is exactly the kind of next generation they've been building toward.
